Battlefield: Bad Company 2's New Multiplayer Mode

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It pays to have friends in DICE's next entry to the hallowed series.

By Nate Ahearn

Anyone who has played the Battlefield series before will tell you that the experience is meant for mass hysteria online. You and your pals engaging in some of the greatest skirmishes to ever grace the small screen is why Battlefield has endured so well over the years. So it stands to reason that EA Games is leading the PR charge for Bad Company 2 by feeding members of the press new multiplayer maps and modes bit by bit over the last several months. Yesterday was no different as I made that same drive down US-101 to Electronic Arts' Redwood Shores studio to play a new multiplayer mode and try my hand at two new maps in Battlefield: Bad Company 2, due out March 2 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

The first batch of new content included the map Laguna Presa and a new mode called Squad Deathmatch. Squads are something that permeates just about every multiplayer mode in Bad Company 2. The idea is simple: you and up to three friends form a mini-team of sorts within the larger group of players. There are two big advantages to forming a squad. First, you can hit the back button (select on PS3) when you see an enemy and his location will instantly pop up for the rest of your squad to see. The second strategic advantage allows you to select one of your three squad mates as a spawn point so you can instantly warp to their location. It's great fun to be in a firefight, struggling for survival, only to see a teammate spawn right next to you and clean things up at your side.

The mode, as I said, is called Squad Deathmatch and it plays as simply as it sounds. You and your squad have to be the first to get 50 kills (kill limits can be changed in the settings) by eradicating the opposition which consists of three other teams of four players (at its max). Aiding you -- or perhaps the other teams if they capitalize first -- is a vehicle specifically designed to eradicate soldiers on foot. It's the sole vehicle in this mode so capturing it is of the utmost importance. The maps that you'll find in Squad Deathmatch are specifically tailored to the mode, with certain areas designed to provide a strategic advantage to the vehicle while the opposite is true elsewhere. It's also cool that, depending on what multiplayer mode you select, you could get an entirely different portion of the map than you would in another game type. A map's total area can be up to 64 square kilometers and every piece will surely be used by one mode or another.

The map we were playing on, known as Laguna Presa, is home to gobs of lush greenery that seemed to pop off the screen a bit more than any of the colors in the first Bad Company. There are large shipping crates situated around the level that act as protective cover from the marauding tank that chops down soldiers. Laguna Presa also changes elevations quite often -- with both high ground and low ground -- and includes plenty of shrubbery which makes for an easy hiding place for snipers. Unlike other games, the camouflage in Bad Company 2 actually works pretty damn well. Just ask the knife in my character's back.

The second map was a familiar location, at least in name. The Bad Company 2 version of the Panama Canal is essentially a boat graveyard with broken down ships that act as bridges to different parts of the level. There are dilapidated buildings for players to take brief refuge until an enemy destroys the wall they're hiding behind.

Unlike in Laguna Presa, we played Panama Canal with the Conquest Mode that Bad Company 1 players received as free downloadable content last year. You and your team -- which in Bad Company 2 can be expanded to twelve players, thus allowing for 24 players total -- need to capture as many of the four flags as possible and hold them until the opposition's score dwindles to zero. There are vehicles galore (including the new UAV) and yes, squad capabilities are still intact.

One aspect of Bad Company 2 that I wanted to touch on was the perk system. We haven't talked much about it, but it's a cool addition that follows in a similar fashion to what's seen in Call of Duty. You have three basic categories for perks that will gradually unlock as you level up your character through any of the four multiplayer modes. There are perks that will affect vehicles, your weapon and your armor. You'll see things like adding a red dot sight to your weapon, increasing your accuracy, adding armor to vehicles, and lots of other abilities. There are also new weapons and armor that will become available as you progress through the ranks. And if that wasn't enough to keep you playing Bad Company 2, there will be at least 16 new multiplayer maps when the game ships on March 2, so get ready.

If all of these fancy perks and abilities aren't to your liking -- perhaps you think it makes the game too easy -- DICE is adding a hardcore mode to increase the realism. Here there will be no kill cam after deaths, no HUD to speak of, and the amount of damage you can take will be decreased dramatically. Good luck to those who want to play in this mode. I know I never will.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is scheduled to launch on March 2 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Keep an eye on IGN.com for our thoughts on the single-player portion of Bad Company 2 sometime next month.